In March 2019, at 64, I visited my 87-year-old father, Iwan Dale Teare, in Georgia. It had been over 15 years since we last met. Despite his Alzheimer’s erasing his memories of me, I sought closure, forgiving him for our past. I left red roses for my mother, confronting a haunting family secret linked to her death.
My mother’s demise in 2015 at 82, burdened by age and illness, plunged me into profound grief, marked by heart palpitations and a sense of impending doom. These physical manifestations of stress—premature ventricular contractions—miraculously ceased after a spiritual intervention, underscoring a divine influence I attributed to my healing.
The ensuing months brought introspection and revelations about my family’s cycle of abuse and psychological turmoil. My father, a complex figure marred by jealousy and anger, and my mother, caught in a web of emotional incest and manipulation, both bore scars of their unresolved traumas and inflicted their own upon their children.
As I navigated this legacy of pain, I unearthed my father’s probable borderline personality disorder and my own bipolar symptoms, reflecting a lineage fraught with emotional instability. Amidst this turmoil, I found solace in faith and community, anchoring my recovery in a power beyond myself, and gradually understanding the intergenerational transmission of trauma and the resilience needed to break its chain.
Steve Teare
childhood trauma survivor
The full and unabridged story is here.